AJK govt urged to reign in cleric: By Yassir Rasheed in the Dawn, June 27

KOTLI, June 26: An Afghan national, who has performed as a prayer leader in different mosques of Azad Kashmir, has been a cause of sectarian tension in the state.
Recently, he provoked, through his fiery and enticing speeches, some local youths to attack members of a minority sect in the Sensa tehsil of the Kotli district, locals told Dawn. They added that after the attack the members of the minority religious sect had to close their businesses in the tehsil and some of them migrated to safer places.
The cleric identified only as Hashim migrated to Pakistan during the Afghan war and afterwards shifted to Azad Kashmir, although any non-state subject is not allowed under the state constitution to reside in the territory.
Nowadays, he is teaching in a madressah located in the Brand Bhatta locality of the Sensa tehsil which, the residents feared, might have been turned into a centre for brainwashing students into some obscure ideas about religion.
The local people claimed that Hashim had also indulged in publishing hate literature to create tension between Sunni and Shia sects, who have been living in religious harmony for decades in the state. He had also issued edicts declaring members of certain sects as ‘kafir’.
The cleric, the locals said, had full command over local and national languages due to his long stay in Azad Kashmir. They alleged that Hashim could also be involved in preparing minds who could be indulged in anti-state activities.
They also expressed concern over Hashim’s unnecessary interference in the affairs of local people. “He along with his cohorts intrudes into the privacy of the people under the excuse that he is the only person in the locality to lead funeral and other religious rituals.” A recent such incident at a funeral involving the hardliner cleric, his cohorts and area people led to a very tense situation, the locals maintained. According to them, Hashim was backed by an influential group.
They said they had lodged several pleas with the civil administration of the Sensa tehsil requesting them to reign in the cleric, but due to the latter’s influence, he got away with his actions.
They complained that the cleric was pressuring locals not to allow their women out of their houses and to bar girls from going to school.
According to locals, the tehsil administration was too helpless to take any action against the cleric and called upon the higher authorities in the AJK government to either expel the Afghan national from the state or stop him from delivering hate speeches against liberal thinking people.
The inhabitants said the cleric had also been a prayer leader in a mosque in the Islamic University of Azad Kashmir, but was expelled on account of his misbehaviour with female students, and his too orthodox ideas about Islam. http://epaper.dawn.com/ArticleText.aspx?article=27_06_2009_002_006